


Self-Made Cages

by akisazame



Category: Persona 4
Genre: Accomplice Ending, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional Manipulation, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-11
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-02-24 21:41:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 41
Words: 12,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2597387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akisazame/pseuds/akisazame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Souji only answered the phone for one person these days.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. who's afraid?

**Author's Note:**

> This began as one accomplice ending [typetrigger](http://www.typetrigger.com) fill, then became two, then three, then I realized they were starting to grow a continuity and this series began in earnest. Chapter titles are the original prompts, and each chapter is the typetrigger-standard 300 words, give-or-take. Mostly in chronological order, except when they're not.

Souji only answered the phone for one person these days.

He hadn't been the type to assign personalized ringtones for each of his contacts, but now it was a necessity, to differentiate the important calls and texts from the unimportant ones. Some days he would turn off the sound alerts for the unimportant ones entirely; some days were worse than others. The important calls were regular, generally on the same days at the same time of day. They were predictable. What Souji couldn't deal with was how some days, out of nowhere, he'd receive four phone calls and fifteen texts and they were all from the wrong person. Usually, all from the same wrong person.

It had been one of those days, and after the sixth text notification Souji had silenced the unimportant sounds and put the phone under his pillow. It was distracting, more than anything else, and not just on a superficial level; he kept almost all of his Personas pushed away into the back of his mind nowadays, but those damned unimportant messages made them flutter around like butterflies.

Souji almost didn't hear the phone ring — the important ring — at 8:15pm, as expected. "Ah, there you are!" Adachi's tone was friendly as always, but Souji could hear the edge of irritation just behind it. "Listen, you know we can't keep her waiting much longer. When can you come back?"

The phone buzzed against Souji's ear and he bit the inside of his mouth to keep from cursing. "Exams are next week," he said, trying to maintain a flat affect. "Maybe afterward."  
"I'll call again." The line went dead.

He didn't usually check the unimportant messages, but he couldn't keep from seeing this one.

 **Hanamura Yosuke 20:16**  
y won't u just talk 2 me? im ur friend partner


	2. fear not

"C'mon, kid," Adachi said, his voice crackling through the phone line. "We don't have all day."  
Souji's stomach clenched; he was squeezing the phone so hard that he thought he might crush it in his hand. "We can still stop," he choked out, barely containing his fear and anger. "We don't have to go through with it."

The laugh sounded like a burst of static, a crinkling of tinfoil. "Shut it, Souji-kun," Adachi snapped. "You have just as much blood on your hands as I do. You saw the Midnight Channel. She wants him next."  
He stood helplessly for a long minute, his heartbeat pounding in his ears. The body slumped against the wall of the Dojimas' living room was still breathing, just barely; Souji wanted more than anything to run out the front door and just leave it there. Eventually their victim would come to — maybe he'd remember, maybe he wouldn't, but either way it wouldn't have to end in another senseless death.

"Don't tell me you're getting soft." Adachi laughed again, and Souji swallowed back tears of humiliation. "Look, kid, you _have_ to be the one to do it. They'll never suspect you. The perfect crime!"

For a moment, Souji wondered if Adachi had ever loved anything or anyone for a day in his life. But he already knew the answer to that question; if Adachi had never felt anything for another person, then he wouldn't need an accomplice at all.

Souji squeezed his eyes shut and grabbed the body by the collar, throwing it through the TV headfirst before he could change his mind. He collapsed in a heap, the phone falling out of his hand and clattering on the tatami.

"You breathe so nicely after you kill someone, Souji-kun," came Adachi's voice from far away.


	3. dark winter

Yosuke didn't know what he'd done wrong. He knew it had to be him, because that was how it always went. It had happened with his friends back in the city, and now it was happening here; the common thread was him, so it seemed like the logical conclusion. To be honest, he'd been expecting it to happen in March, when distance would make it natural to lose touch. He hadn't expected it now, in December, with the case still unsolved.

The worst part was that it seemed like it was just him. Souji still smiled warmly at Yukiko, still laughed at Chie's jokes, still encouraged Kanji, still amiably endured Rise's flirting. Yosuke would be walking through town and see Souji with people just the same way as he always had. It was Yosuke who was different, and he spent most of his idle moments struggling to figure out why.

It was mid-January when he saw Naoto waiting in front of the shoe lockers. "Senpai," she said furtively, tugging on the brim of her cap, "there is a matter I wish to discuss with you."

They sat on the roof of the school for an hour, huddling close together in the fog and snow as Naoto shared all of her theories about Souji's recent behavior. She'd noticed the subtle ways he'd withdrawn since December; Yosuke should have known nothing would escape Naoto's careful scrutiny. "My theory," she said finally, her breath visible in the cold air, "is that Souji-senpai harbors feelings of guilt. The fact that he has exhibited this behavior mainly towards you and, to a lesser extent, myself leads me to believe we are the primary catalysts for these feelings."

"So what are we supposed to do about it?" Yosuke asked, staring at his gloved hands.

"That… is an excellent question," Naoto said.


	4. extinguish

"This is a joke, right, partner?" Yosuke pleaded, pressing the phone hard against his ear. "This is all a joke, you're gonna laugh and tell me how stupid I am, hoo boy that Yosuke sure fell for it, right?" The silence stretched for what seemed like hours. " _Right?!_ "

"I'm sorry," Souji said, his voice small, barely audible over the phone line.

That was the breaking point; all of the emotions Yosuke had been struggling to control burst out at once, like a dam crumbling. He felt his face get hot with rage at the same time as the tears started running down his cheeks. "Don't you _dare,_ " Yosuke said, squeezing his free hand into a fist. "Don't you _dare_ think you can get away with a half-assed apology like that. I can't _believe…_ " His voice caught in his throat, and he made a horrible strangled sobbing noise. "Dammit, Souji, how _could_ you? All this time?!"

"Yes," came the quiet reply, too quickly to have been a lie.

Yosuke's whole body was shaking. "Does anyone else know?" he asked, managing to force his voice under control.

"No." A pause; Yosuke opened his mouth to respond, but Souji started first. "I know I don't have any right to ask you for a favor, but—"

"Now I _know_ you're joking," Yosuke interrupted. Between the yelling and the crying, he felt like his throat was going to split open. "If you don't tell me this is a joke right now, partner, I _swear—_ "

" _Please,_ Yosuke," Souji said, and for the first time in the entire conversation his voice had something resembling emotion in it. "You can't tell anyone."

Yosuke tried to imagine himself going to Chie or Naoto or his parents and explaining the whole awful truth that he had uncovered about Souji and Adachi. He bit the inside of his mouth to keep from laughing. "What would I even say?"

"I really am sorry," Souji said. "I didn't want to get you involved."

"Yeah, well." Yosuke laughed; the last time he'd heard his own voice sound that bitter, it had been coming from his Shadow. "Guess it's too late now."


	5. children of

"This was your plan, wasn't it?" Souji said, his voice shaking. The hand holding the phone was sweat-slick and he thought he might drop it, wasn't sure how much he cared. "This is what you wanted to happen from the beginning."

Adachi's dismissive snort was clearly audible through the phone line. "You know I'm not the one calling the shots. But I have to admit, this does solve a lot of my problems."

Everything felt unreal. Dojima had been found dead on the television antennae outside of his house one week ago. The funeral had been yesterday. Now, today, hours after Souji had gotten back to his dorm room in the city, he had heard from his parents that they wouldn't be able to take Nanako in after all. Souji had never called Adachi before, wasn't even sure if he was allowed, but he'd dialed the number as soon as he got off the phone with his mother, before he could think about the rules or the consequences for breaking them.

"You're going to do it, aren't you?" Adachi was saying. Souji had a stuffy feeling in his ears, like cotton. "You can't leave poor Nanako here alone."

If the choice was between Nanako living alone and Nanako living with a murderer, Souji wished he could choose the former.

"Of course I can't," Souji said finally. His tongue felt tacky inside his mouth. "But we can't use the house any more."

Adachi clucked his tongue. "She was living there before, you know. She was right upstairs, sleeping peacefully, that night when you—"

Souji's arm went slack, the phone falling away from his ear. He didn't want to hear it. He knew what he'd done, knew it was something he could never take back. Something he could never make up for.


	6. bitter words

Souji didn't see much of Nanako, and when he did, she never spoke to him.

_She knows,_ the paranoid part of his brain chanted. _She knows, she knows, she knows._

There was no way that she could know. Adachi had become adept at throwing the police off their trail; he destroyed evidence all on his own now, which begged the question of why he'd insisted Souji burn that letter in the first place. The simple country officers and detectives were out of their depth with a real serial killer on their hands, so all they'd been doing for months was futilely chasing their own tails. Requests for backup from more experienced officers in all the nearest cities mysteriously disappeared. Adachi had every base covered.

Which, Souji figured, was why he didn't bother with the actual murdering anymore.

Souji slept in late most days, meaning he missed seeing Nanako before she left for school. She often didn't return home until well after dinner, refusing Souji's cooking with a shake of her head before disappearing into her room. She didn't watch TV anymore, which Souji might have found more unsettling if he wasn't intimately familiar with that television set's dark history. The logical part of his brain insisted that this was her way of grieving, that he just needed to let her be.

_She knows, she knows, she knows, she knows, she knows…_

Souji was shopping at Junes on a Tuesday afternoon; he would have preferred not to, but there weren't any other options left in town. Just as he'd feared, when he walked by the door to the food court, he heard a familiar voice… two familiar voices.

He glanced outside and saw Yosuke sitting with Nanako, both of them laughing and smiling. Yosuke saw Souji in the doorway and frowned.

Nanako might not know, but Yosuke certainly did.


	7. the wreckage

Souji didn't go out much. It was easy to avoid the guilt when he'd been living in the city, far away from the scenes of shared crimes, easy to close his eyes and forget the people he'd betrayed, let alone the people they'd killed. At his new school, he was just another face; no one ever thought it was strange how he went straight home from class every day, didn't go out anywhere, never seemed to make friends.

But he knew too well that Inaba was a small town. It was impossible to avoid everyone forever.

Souji was in a different class from Yosuke and the others, through some twist of fate; added to the fact that Souji didn't attend school very often— "bereavement" was the excuse, a far too kind one— it was weeks before he ran into Yosuke at the shoe lockers. Souji froze up at the sight of him; they hadn't really spoken since that phone call, and that had been before…

"Just go," Yosuke said. He wasn't looking at Souji, eyes focused on his locker; his voice sounded tight in his throat. "I don't have anything to say to you. Just get your shoes and go."

Something about hearing Yosuke's voice after all this time, after all these events, opened a floodgate inside Souji's heart. Sometime very long ago, they'd trusted each other implicitly; but then Souji had kept his mouth shut, continued to keep his mouth shut, gone to the police station in March, and then everything he and Yosuke had worked so hard to build together had scattered away like fallen leaves in the wind.

Yosuke spoke again before Souji could. "I don't want you here. I don't want you anywhere near me."

Souji snatched his shoes from the locker and fled.


	8. shatter

Almost a year to the day since Nanako's rescue from the TV world, she was readmitted to the hospital. Her grasp on health had always been tenuous; it had taken six months for her to be released in the first place, and it was clear that the fog that lay over the town was still affecting her. Souji was nearly emotionless when he called the ambulance, like some part of him had been expecting this all along.

He stared at his phone for a long time in the waiting room, trying to decide what to do.

**To: Hanamura Yosuke 15:28**  
Nanako isn't well. We're at the hospital. I'm sure she wants to see you.

There was no response, not that Souji expected one. He had grown used to this protracted game of cat-and-mouse between him and Yosuke. Souji considered his phone for a while longer, began typing another text message, then shuddered and flipped the phone closed in disgust.

Twenty minutes later, Yosuke flew through the waiting room door and marched straight up to the reception desk, not even sparing Souji a glance.

After an animated argument with the receptionist, Yosuke turned on his heel and marched over to Souji. So many emotions were swirling behind his eyes: anger, frustration, desperation, fear. "They won't let me in without you," Yosuke said, the contempt evident in his tone. "I need a goddamn _murderer_ to escort me into a hospital room, what a joke."

Souji glanced around, panicked that someone had overheard. "Yosuke, please…"

"Don't like hearing it out loud, do you?" Yosuke's voice was quieter now, but Souji still flinched. "It's what you are."

Souji stood up, grabbing Yosuke by the wrist and leading him towards the reception desk. "We can talk about this later."

Yosuke laughed through his teeth.


	9. divided by

Yosuke wasn't sure what he expected to find in Nanako's hospital room. The scene was nearly identical to the one from a year before; Nanako, small and fragile in a bed made for adults, tubes and wires surrounding her small frame. He could just hear her labored breathing over the sounds of the machines.

"I'm terribly sorry," a nurse was saying, one hand pressed to Yosuke's arm. "The doctor needs to run some more tests. We'll have to ask you two to leave."

Souji was sitting in a chair in the corner of the room; at the nurse's words, he got up and left without a sound. Yosuke crushed his hands into fists at his sides. "When can I come back?"

If the nurse understood the implication behind Yosuke's singular pronoun, she didn't acknowledge it. "Not tonight, I'm afraid. Perhaps tomorrow, if her condition has improved."

"Thank you," Yosuke muttered, turning and marching out the door without looking where he was going. He barreled right into Souji, who was waiting just outside. "What are _you_ still doing here?"

"We were going to talk," Souji said, his voice flat. He was staring down at Yosuke's shoes.

Yosuke could feel his nails cutting into his palm. "I don't have anything to say to you."

"Obviously you do," Souji said, putting a hand on Yosuke's shoulder, holding him in place so he couldn't turn and walk away. "Unless you're enjoying picking fights with me."

Yosuke made a strangled noise, moving his arm up to press against Souji's neck, pushing him roughly against the wall. Souji didn't resist. "Don't fucking talk to me like you have the moral high ground, you _murderer._ "

"Please," Souji choked out, his hand clutching at Yosuke's jacket. "Let's not do this here."

Yosuke glanced over his shoulder. "Fine."


	10. never trust

The fog was thick outside the hospital. Souji trailed behind Yosuke as he trudged through the parking lot, ducking between cars until they were at the tree-lined edge. It was then that Yosuke turned on Souji, glaring viciously. "How _dare_ you," Yosuke said, shoving Souji with both hands. "How dare you come back here, how dare you live with Nanako like it's fucking normal, how dare you act like you're blameless in all this! She is innocent and suffering and it's _your fault._ "

Souji staggered back, but managed to catch himself before he lost his balance. Yosuke was still coming towards him, so Souji spun and pressed his back against the nearest tree. "Yosuke, it wasn't my—"

"It wasn't your _what?_ " Yosuke demanded, putting one hand flat on Souji's chest and pushing him back against the tree. "Don't you dare say it wasn't your fault. You made this bed the second you decided to side with Adachi." He spit out the name like it was something distasteful.

"It wasn't my _decision,_ " Souji shouted, and Yosuke flinched back for a second. It was the first time he'd raised his voice in a long time. "I didn't want to come back here. I didn't want to kill—" His voice faltered; he couldn't make himself say his uncle's name. "I didn't want to kill anyone," he finished instead.

Yosuke had a horrified look in his eyes, and he looked like he could start crying at any moment. Whether that was out of anger or sadness, Souji couldn't determine. "You liar," he managed after a long pause, shoving Souji again before turning away. "It was your decision to protect him in the first place."

Souji coughed air back into his lungs. "You're right. So what do you want to do? Turn me in?"


	11. worlds collide

Yosuke held his breath. The dim lights from the hospital windows were barely visible through the fog.

The thing that got Yosuke was how _calm_ Souji was, like he'd been expecting all of this, had already resigned himself to it. He thought back to the way Souji had acted in the hospital room with Namatame almost a year ago, after they thought Nanako had died, and wondered why he thought this would be any different.

If Yosuke was honest, he was picking fights with Souji. It killed him how Souji had been so impassive through this whole thing, especially considering the knowledge Yosuke had. He wanted to make Souji mad, to make him feel guilt, to make him feel _something._ Once he'd gotten the text message, Yosuke had decided that today was the day; he was going to make Souji react, no matter what it took.

He spun around, fist clenched, ready to strike.

Souji's phone rang.

Neither of them moved. The phone kept ringing.

Adrenaline rushed through Yosuke, and he lashed out, springing on Souji and fumbling roughly for the pocket that contained his phone. Souji tried to dodge away, but Yosuke had one hand clawed around the neck of his jacket. "It's him, isn't it?" Yosuke demanded, checking both of Souji's jacket pockets, then all four in his pants. "Where the fuck is your phone? Let me fucking talk to him!"

"Stop!" Souji wailed, his voice cracking in the middle of the word. "Please, you can't! Stop it, please, just let me…"

Yosuke had Souji backed against the tree again, the fist in his jacket collar jabbing into his clavicle. "I want to talk to him!" he demanded, fumbling with his other hand, trying to open Souji's jacket.

The ringing stopped, plunging the parking lot back into silence.


	12. return to sender

"If you get calls from this number, you'd better pick up."

It had been two months since Souji had left Inaba when he got the first call. He'd been on edge constantly, keeping one hand in his pocket so he could feel the phone if it vibrated during class. Thankfully, the call came in the evening, while Souji was holed up alone in his room, staring blankly at his composition textbook.

The first thing Adachi had said was "good."

Souji wasn't sure what he had expected. Apart from the unsettling greeting, it was a fairly normal conversation. Adachi asked how Souji was settling in at his new school, if he'd made any friends, if he'd joined any clubs, how his grades were. The curling, uncomfortable thing in Souji's stomach slowly dissipated the more they talked; he remembered the way the two of them had talked before, easy and comfortable over dinner at Dojima's. _This_ was the person he'd protected. The person in the interrogation room in March, the person who'd laughed as he'd burned the letter, the person who'd murdered two women — that was someone else entirely.

Two weeks later, Souji came home from soccer practice and fell asleep on the couch in his room. He woke up past 9pm to see six missed calls on his phone.

His heart dropped into his stomach.

He called back without even listening to the voice mails. Adachi picked up after the first ring. "What did I tell you about answering calls from this number?" he said, a clear line of fury beneath his otherwise jovial tone. "This had better not happen again."

"It won't," Souji said, his throat constricting around the words. "It won't, I promise, I'm sorry."

The next day, Souji quit the soccer team.


	13. decimated

Souji couldn't breathe. Yosuke's fist in his chest was crushing his windpipe, but he had the feeling he would be struggling even if he wasn't restrained. All of his limbs felt cold, like they'd been plunged into icy water. The memory of Adachi's voice was echoing in his ears. _What did I tell you about answering calls from this number?_

"Yosuke," Souji managed. He could barely hear himself speak. "Please let go of me."

"Shut the fuck up!" Yosuke wailed. Souji could see tears welling in the corners of Yosuke's eyes, and his own eyes stuck there, hyperfocused. Yosuke's hand finally found the zipper tab on Souji's jacket and he pulled it down in one violent movement, like he was pulling the bandage off a wound. He grabbed at Souji's phone in the inner pocket, pulling it out and staring at the missed call on the display. "I'm gonna call him," he said, his voice suddenly quiet and low. "Don't try and stop me."

Souji shifted beneath Yosuke's grip and coughed in an attempt to get some air into his lungs. "Please," he managed, the word barely audible over the din in his ears.

"You still think you have a say?" Yosuke said. One of the tears dislodged from the corner of his eye, running quickly down his cheek and disappearing. "You're not our leader anymore, Souji. You gave that up." He shoved Souji back into the tree one last time before letting him go, tearing away into the parking lot with the phone gripped tightly in his hand.

Souji sunk to the ground, gasping, one hand pressed to the spot on his chest where Yosuke's had been choking him, the other grasping at the dirt beneath the tree. _What did I tell you?_ Adachi's voice whispered, cold and sinister.


	14. uprising

Yosuke wasn't watching where he was going, his eyes glued on Souji's phone as he fled into the parking lot. He was pretty sure Souji wouldn't follow him; at the very least, he should be able to get in a few choice words before Souji chased him down.

There was no contact picture associated with the number; the ringtone had been a default one. Yosuke might have believed it hadn't been Adachi at all if he hadn't seen the name, the kanji of "Adachi" followed by a "san," as if that bastard deserved it. Yosuke flipped the phone open, the option to redial readily available.

He realized he had no idea what he was going to say.

His hands were shaking, cold in the autumn air. He was on the verge of changing his mind when the phone started to ring again.

Yosuke considered throwing it into the parking lot, underhanding it so that it would slide under a car, clattering to a stop behind someone's wheel, ready to be smashed. But he didn't know what might happen if he did that, wasn't sure why he _cared._ So, instead, he answered.

He didn't even have time to raise the phone to his ear before he heard Adachi's voice, loud but surprisingly calm. "Souji-kun, Souji-kun, Souji-kun," he said, and it almost sounded like a _purr._ "We've talked about this, haven't we? Did you forget? I call, and you answer. Or have you forgotten how to follow directions?"

" _Don't,_ " Yosuke heard himself say; he felt like he was outside of himself, watching the way he'd watch a movie or a television show, the sudden burning in his lungs the only thing anchoring him to his own body. "Don't you _dare_ talk to him like that."


	15. hand it over

Souji didn't have his phone, so he had no idea how long he'd been sitting under the tree. He drew his knees to his still-aching chest and rested his chin on them, staring out into the darkness in the direction Yosuke had run.

He wasn't sure what he was waiting for. Maybe Yosuke was just standing out there in the parking lot, expecting Souji to chase after him. Maybe the phone thing had been a bluff -- a bluff for what, Souji couldn't decide. At the same time, he couldn't picture Yosuke coming back, because there wasn't anything left for him to say. Dimly, he replayed the entire series of events in his head; it was something he'd gotten good at, an important skill for making friends, solving mysteries, and dealing with murderers. He realized Yosuke had never answered the question of whether he wanted to turn Souji in.

He passed the time by extrapolating all of the possible conclusions to this evening. None of them involved Yosuke coming back. All of them were bad.

Souji stood up, brushed the dirt off his pants, and walked home alone.

Coming back to the Dojimas' empty house reminded him of last year's November, of Nanako in a hospital bed just like the one she currently occupied, of Dojima with bandages circling his head and waist, of Souji and his friends huddled together in the waiting room. Of Adachi, standing with Souji in Dojima's room, whispering reassurances, brushing fingertips over Souji's hand, his touch like the feet of a dragonfly.

Going upstairs felt like too much. He warmed a mug of tea in the microwave and sat at the kitchen table, staring into the water and wishing he could read the leaves.

The next morning, he found his phone in the mailbox.


	16. reckless

_At Junes,_ had been the first offer. Yosuke had actually laughed. _Are you joking?_

_At the police station,_ Yosuke had countered.

_The floodplain._ The police station suggestion wasn't even acknowledged. The new offer made Yosuke sick to his stomach.

_The shopping district,_ came Yosuke's final proposal. _By the gas station?_ was the response, and there was something like a smile in his crackly telephone tone.

Yosuke had his hands buried deep in his pockets, hood pulled up to shield his hair and face from the driving rain. The shopping district was deserted, which was a common sight nowadays. The rain was the only thing that made the suffocating yellow fog disperse, if only briefly. Yosuke almost welcomed it; he didn't like wearing the glasses, which were his last tangible reminder that Teddie had ever existed.

A beat-up white Toyota pulled into the station, narrowly avoiding spraying Yosuke with a rain puddle. He wasn't surprised when he saw the driver.

"You actually came," were the first words out of Adachi's mouth once he exited the car and approached. "You two are perfect for each other, you know that?"

Yosuke dug his nails into his palms. "Don't you say another word about him. This is between you and me."

"Except you were using his phone," Adachi said, his voice light. He didn't have an umbrella or a hood; the rain had already drenched him, gluing his unruly mop of hair flat to his head. "Look, are you just here to waste my time? I have better things I could be doing."

"Like committing murder?" The words fly out of Yosuke's mouth before he can think better of them.

Adachi takes a step closer, his smile pure saccharine. "Oh, Hanamura-kun, didn't he tell you? _He's_ the murderer now."


	17. break the hero

"That won’t work," Yosuke insisted. His whole body felt cold, had turned to ice the moment Adachi had voiced his command. "You _know_ that won't work, that's _ridiculous,_ he can—"

There was a sharp noise from the other side of the phone, a bang and a rattle. Yosuke flinched. "You think I don't know that?" Adachi hissed, and Yosuke could swear that there was a hint of panic in his voice. "Look, you're new to this. I get it. You don't know how it works. So let me explain it to you."

A long pause followed, and Yosuke pulled the phone from his ear for a moment to make sure the call hadn't dropped.

When Adachi spoke again, his voice was quiet and reverent. "She appears on the Midnight Channel, but only I can see her. She speaks to me and tells me what she desires. Most of the time, it's nothing of consequence. But sometimes, she decides someone must die. And that's when I call my little accomplice." Yosuke could picture the sneer on Adachi's face as he said the word. “But now you’ve gotten yourself involved, Yosuke-kun. She wasn't happy when I told her, you know. I thought for sure she'd want you dead. Shows how much I know."

Yosuke bit down hard on his lip, just to make himself feel something. He tasted blood on his tongue. “You just do whatever she says? Without question?”

"Oh, come now," Adachi said, barely containing his laughter. "Here I thought you were used to taking orders. What did you all call him? ‘Leader’?"

"No," Yosuke snapped, sudden vicious defiance coiling in his stomach. " _I_ called him partner."

Another laugh, low and ominous. "So did I. But now it seems those alliances must shift, mustn't they?"


	18. sliding down

Yosuke stared at his phone for a long time after hanging up, watching 'Call Ended' flash and then disappear, transitioning to the picture of the Investigation Team he'd set as his background. He'd edited it a few months back so that Souji was on the very edge, a sleeve and tuft of silver hair the only remaining evidence.

He stared at that sliver of hair and tried to figure out how to fix everything.

He didn't even realize he was leaning backwards until he lost his balance and toppled into his closet door with a crash. The point of impact stung on his back, pain anchoring him to reality. He slid down slowly until he was sitting with his back against the door, phone still in hand, Adachi's words still echoing in his head. _What did you all call him? ‘Leader’?_

Yosuke's focus on his phone wallpaper drifted up, to an elbow and the edge of a blue cap, and he inhaled sharply.

The phone only rang once. "Shirogane speaking."

"Naoto-kun, I need your help," Yosuke choked out, all on a single rushed exhale. "It's about Souji. He's in trouble. And I don't know--" _I don't know what to do. I don't know how to help him. I don't know if I can kill him._

"Senpai, please calm down," Naoto said, even-keeled as always. "Where are you right now? Is it safe to meet, perhaps in a neutral location?"

"I..." The question of safety hadn't crossed Yosuke's mind until now; he bit the inside of his mouth in some kind of retrospective penance. He felt like he couldn't stop making mistakes. "I'm sorry, Naoto-kun, I shouldn--"

"I appear to have forgotten my notebook at school," Naoto interrupted, and Yosuke picked on the emphasis. "I'll be there in fifteen minutes."


	19. abandoned

Yasogami High seemed to be deserted when Yosuke arrived, every window dark and lifeless. It wasn't a surprise; the after school athletic clubs had mostly stopped meeting after the fog had descended, and the art clubs hadn't stuck around much longer after that. The drama club had been the sole survivor, its members desperate for a temporary escape from their increasingly bleak reality. Yosuke could understand the sentiment.

The sun, barely visible behind the thick layer of yellow fog, was just beginning to set as Yosuke rode his bicycle through the gates, parking it next to the school's entrance, not even bothering to lock it up. He didn't see Naoto inside and couldn't remember which shoe locker was hers, so he waited next to his instead, leaning his back against the lockers and fiddling with his phone to keep from staring anxiously at the doors.

Fifteen minutes came and went, followed by twenty, followed by thirty, and it was at that point when Yosuke began to worry. Naoto was punctual to a fault, and Yosuke knew that she wouldn't have given a fifteen minute time frame if she hadn't intended to make it; fifteen minutes late was unthinkable, inconceivable. Yosuke started to send her a text message, then thought better of it and called.

The call went straight to voicemail, and Yosuke's skin went cold. Naoto never turned off her phone, so the only explanation was that she was outside the service area, which could only mean one thing: for whatever reason, she was inside the TV.

Yosuke tore out of the school at full speed, leaping onto his bicycle and taking off towards Junes without a second thought.


	20. give it a minute

Despite the fact that they'd barely spoken since Souji moved back to Inaba, the house felt unbearably quiet without Nanako. It was funny how a person could grow used to certain things -- the TV being on when he came downstairs in the morning, coffee made and waiting tacitly in the pot, the warm presence of another human sitting in the living room and carefully ignoring him -- to the point where they're barely noticed until they're unceremoniously ripped away.

It was just the same as the previous November, except this time he knew for a fact that one of the Dojimas would never come home, and he had no one to blame but himself.

Souji tried sitting in front of the TV, his phone face-up on the table in case the hospital called, but he couldn't bring himself to even turn the set on. It would still be on the last channel Nanako had watched; at this time of day it would be the news, then a Featherman rerun, then that that quiz show she liked so much. He couldn't remember a time when he'd watched either Featherman or the quiz show by himself, and he wasn't about to start now.

The foggy sky was beginning to dim by the time Souji managed to extricate himself from the living room. The entire day had somehow passed and he hadn't noticed.

It was just after 4:30 when the Dojima house phone rang. Souji rushed to answer; he had given the hospital his cell phone number, but this one would have been listed first on Nanako's file. "Dojima residence," he answered breathlessly, steeling himself for bad news.

"You should know," Adachi said, vicious and venomous, causing Souji's heart to leap into his throat, "that your little boyfriend fucked with your phone."


	21. now look again

"W-what are you talking about?" Souji said. He stared at the cell phone in his other hand as though it was about to explode.

"You know who I mean!" Adachi snapped, and Souji flinched as if struck. He'd been referring to his phone, but he realized now that the question had been ambiguous. "That little shit must've done it when he had your phone last night. Does he still have it?"

Souji couldn't remember the last time Adachi had sounded this angry. It might have been the angriest he'd ever heard him. "N-no, I have it right here... what do you mean, he fucked with it?"

"I've been calling you all fucking day," Adachi said, enunciating each word slowly, like he was speaking to a child. "None of the calls went through. I couldn't even get your voice mail, not that I'd leave a message. So, what, you've had it all day and it's never rung?"

Souji didn't respond right away, distracted by frantically checking his phone's settings. The phone wasn't on silent, still seemed to be able to accept calls, except--

"He blocked your number," Souji said solemnly, flipping the phone closed and clutching it to his chest, as though he could siphon the battery power into his failing heart.

There was a long pause; Souji could hear Adachi's even breathing on the other end of the line. He couldn't imagine what Yosuke had been trying to accomplish; it was dangerous and reckless and so very like Yosuke that it made Souji's chest ache. "So," Adachi's voice cut in, cold as ice, "unblock it."

_Don't waste it,_ came a small voice somewhere in the long-banished part of Souji's mind. _Don't waste the chance he gave you._

"And what will you do if I don't?"


	22. cracks in the

The line went dead. Souji wasn't surprised. He had his cell phone open again before he consciously thought about it.

**To: Hanamura Yosuke 16:37**  
I can't believe you did that.

Souji sunk into a chair at the kitchen table, suddenly exhausted. The rush of adrenaline was subsiding, replaced by fear wrapping itself around Souji's heart like an icy hand. He stared at the screen of his phone, slowly navigating away from the text message screen and back to Adachi's blocked number. _If you get calls from this number, you'd better pick up._ As long as he kept that number blocked, he'd never get another call again.

It was too simple. There were bound to be repercussions or retaliation, if not immediately then somewhere in the foreseeable future. But right now, for these precious moments, Souji could be free.

**To: Hanamura Yosuke 16:40**  
Thank you.

Souji set the phone down on the table and got up to make some tea. He hadn't eaten all day, couldn't even remember the last time he'd eaten, but tea was something he was fairly certain his still-trembling hands couldn't ruin. As he waited for the water to boil, he thought back to Yosuke's last words to him outside the hospital. _You still think you have a say?_ He couldn't imagine what must have happened that apparently made Yosuke change his mind.

He was so absorbed by his thoughts that he wasn't paying attention to the mug he took out of the cabinet. When he realized it was Dojima's blue one, he flung it away from himself without thinking and it crashed and shattered on the floor. Legs giving out beneath him, Souji sunk to the floor amidst the broken pieces, covering his face with his hands and sobbing.


	23. alone with

It didn't occur to Yosuke how stupid this plan was until there was no turning back.

They'd made it a rule to never go into the TV world alone. There were many reasons for it, but the predominant one was that they were a team, responsible for protecting each other. He couldn't say how much of a team they still were; without the investigation or Souji's leadership to bind them together, they'd slowly drifted apart. Yosuke and Naoto were the only one's who'd figured out Souji's secret, and that knowledge had dislodged them even further from the rest of the former Investigation Team.

The last time Yosuke had gone through the TV in Junes was one year ago, when they'd banded together to rescue Nanako, fueled by anger and a desire for justice. So much had changed, but somehow Yosuke's feelings were still the same.

Putting on the glasses almost seemed like a formality; the fog was much lighter inside the TV than it had been a year ago. In fact, it was similar to the fog that pervaded Inaba daily, a fact on which Yosuke tried not to dwell. The studio lights shone brightly on the familiar pattern of the backlot floor, but something was missing, and it took Yosuke an embarrassingly long time to realize what that was.

Of course. The exit TVs had been Teddie's.

Panic blossomed in Yosuke's stomach and rose up into his throat, but he choked back the bile as quickly as he could. He hadn't consciously considered whether he would find Teddie inside the TV, but that must have been his assumption. It was the only way he could rationalize the pure stupidity of going in without knowing there'd be an exit.

He had to find Naoto. She'd know how to fix everything.


	24. unwilling to

He felt ridiculous wandering aimlessly down the metal catwalks of the TV world periodically calling Naoto's name, but Yosuke couldn't come up with a better tactic without a navigator or companions. He'd thought he had started down the path towards the secret base Naoto had created when she'd been kidnapped, but either he'd been mistaken or the world had been reshaped somehow since the last time he was here. Everything looked subtly different, enough to evoke a feeling of déjà vu but not enough that he could be confident of where he was or where he was going.

The longer he wandered, the more wound-up he got, until his chest felt so tight that he could barely force himself to breathe. He crouched down and covered his face with his hands, forcing air into his lungs in steady gasps, trying to find a way out of this awful mess he'd walked right into.

He'd screwed up bad, and this time there might not be anyone to save him.

When the panic abated long enough for Yosuke to pull his hands away from his face, he saw a familiar black-and-red sky in the distance and cursed under his breath. The twisted shopping district where he'd awoken to his Persona over a year ago wasn't the first place he would have chosen to look for Naoto, but that was where the TV world -- or maybe his own subconscious -- had apparently led him.

It wasn't much changed since the last time he'd seen it, so long ago, but everything about _him_ had changed. As he marched stubbornly towards the Konishi Liquor Store, he kicked something and heard it clatter across the pavement.

He bent down and picked it up without thinking. It was a cell phone, scuffed and with a shattered screen.


	25. fear it

"Ah, Yosuke-kun, stealing someone else's phone now, are you?"

Yosuke spun to face the source of the voice, a dark figure perched on the roof of Souzai Daigaku. He couldn't make out any distinguishing features from this distance, but the figure's identity was clear from the cold, mocking voice. "What the hell are--"

"Theft is a crime, you know," Adachi continued as though he hadn't heard Yosuke speak, "and you're a repeat offender! Maybe it would do you some good to be locked up for a while."

Yosuke glared up at Adachi; he was distantly aware that his hands were shaking, and he balled them into fists, nails of his free hand digging into his palms while the other clutched the broken cell phone. "What the fuck do you mean? Where the fuck is Naoto?"

"Not here!" Adachi cut in, and the exclamation had an edge of manic glee that made Yosuke's stomach churn. "The only thing you'll find of your darling kid detective is right there in your hand." Yosuke flinched and Adachi laughed, high and delirious. "Did you really think the baby genius Naoto-kun would come in here all alone, after you all _promised_ you wouldn't? Though it's not like that ever stopped Souji-kun. Promises must not mean very much to you lot, I suppose."

"We are not talking about--"

"Anyway," Adachi said, leaning back and tossing something carelessly with one hand, "Naoto-kun isn't here, because Naoto-kun isn't _stupid._ "

The anger and adrenaline surged through Yosuke like an electric shock, and he was summoning Susano-o before he thought consciously about it; his Persona flew up to the rooftop and swung at Adachi, but the figure simply rippled and faded before Yosuke's eyes.


	26. lies they told

"Now, now, Yosuke-kun, there's no need to be rash." Adachi's voice was coming from behind, and Yosuke spun to see him perched atop Tatsumi Textiles. "Did you think I'd come all the way out here to see you in person? How sweet." He caught the thing he'd been tossing and pointed it down at Yosuke, lining it up through an imaginary rifle sight. Yosuke couldn't tell what it was from this distance, not that it particularly mattered if Adachi was just a kind of strange projection. "Poor Yosuke-kun, trapped inside the TV with no one here to save him. Good thing no one will miss you."

"Th- that's not true," Yosuke said, but the retort tapered off into uncertainty. The fog had made most of the residents of Inaba into frightened, self-absorbed shells of their former selves; could he really say for sure that he'd be missed? The rest of the Investigation Team might have noticed, but they'd grown increasingly distant even from each other since the previous December. Naoto would notice, being the last person to speak to Yosuke, but it wasn't as though they had been particularly close; he couldn't imagine her expending any resources on rescue or revenge. As for Souji, the one person he could have wholeheartedly depended on one year ago had somehow become his greatest enemy. He thought back on all the petty fights he'd picked with Souji since he'd returned to Inaba and wished that, despite everything he knew, he could take it all back.

"Keep telling yourself that," Adachi said, mock-piteous. "I hope the Shadows don't hurt you _too_ badly."

A thought occurred to Yosuke a second too late. "Wait! How do you--" The vision of Adachi shimmered away before the words reached him.


	27. nothing is left

Souji didn't remember falling asleep, but he woke to an urgent banging on the front door. It took him a minute to orient himself; he was still on the kitchen floor, pressed against the wall.

The knocking hadn't stopped, so he slowly pulled himself to his feet and walked over to peer out the peephole. He couldn't see the person's face, but he recognized the familiar blue hat, and he opened the door as quickly as he could with sleep-slow hands. Naoto started when the door opened, fist poised in mid-knock. "Senpai! Thank goodness, I was starting to worry you weren't home. There's an emergency, and I would have called you but my phone is missing and--"

Souji's chest seized; it was rare that something managed to send Naoto into a panic. It was fully dark outside, and he wondered just how long he'd been asleep. "What's going--"

"It's Yosuke-senpai," Naoto said breathlessly, grabbing hold of Souji's shirt sleeve as though she needed it to stay afloat. "We were supposed to meet at school. He said you were in trouble. But I got held up at the station, and when I got there, the whole school was empty." She stopped for breath, then her grip tightened on Souji's arm. The anguish in her eyes was thinly veiled. "Senpai, what's going _on?_ "

Souji's head was still fuzzy from sleep, and his brain kept looping back to Yosuke and the phone call he'd had with Adachi. "Naoto, you... you said you were held up at the station?"

"That's correct, Detective Adachi bumped into me in the hall and started asking about--" Her eyes widened. "It's him, isn't it? It's all been him. And you--"

"We have to find Adachi," Souji cut in, pulling away to fetch his phone from the kitchen table.


	28. sacrifice

The fog had given way to rain, falling in heavy sheets. Souji could feel the cold of it through his rain coat as he rode his bike to the police station, following close behind Naoto's lead.

Naoto led him through the halls of the station, her pace quick and confident and angry. No one questioned Detective Shirogane's presence, so they systematically checked every room before determining that Adachi had left since Naoto had seen him. "Not a surprising outcome, but unfortunate," Naoto said, hopping up to sit on the edge of a table in the last interrogation room they'd checked. "Any ideas, senpai?"

Souji ran a finger alongside the phone in his pocket; he'd only called Adachi the one time, and he wasn't keen to do it again. "Junes, maybe," he said, slow and contemplative.

"Have you ever..." Naoto trailed off, eyes darting to the floor. "Sorry. I meant to say, might you know where he lives?"

"No," Souji said. It was no mental leap to complete the first question Naoto had intended to ask. _Have you ever visited his home?_ He knew without a doubt that Naoto's sharp wit had deduced Souji's part in Adachi's crimes. "Maybe another officer might know, or there's a personnel file we could--"

The shrill sound of Souji's default ringtone cut through his words, and he jumped at the sudden vibration against his hand. Naoto raised an inquisitive eyebrow as Souji fumbled the phone out of his pocket; the number was unfamiliar, but he couldn't come up with a good excuse to not answer.

He didn't even get to speak before Adachi's voice was in his ear. "You'll have to change your number before you get rid of me, you know. I'd like to propose a trade."


	29. into the storm

"What did you do to him?" Souji managed through his rapidly tightening throat. He was tangentially aware of Naoto's sharp gaze, but he couldn't focus on anything besides the soft static of the phone line and the rush of panicked adrenaline beneath his own skin. "I swear, if you've hurt him, I'll--"

"Someone's grown a pair of fangs!" Adachi said, sounding vaguely amazed. "Just imagine if you'd been this vicious a year ago! I suppose that's a bit of a moot point, isn't it? It's far too late to save anyone else you've hurt."

Souji wrapped his free arm around his waist in an attempt to anchor himself; Naoto looked increasingly concerned, but made no move towards or away from him. "We're not talking about..." He trailed off, squeezed his eyes shut, and tried again. "What are your terms?"

"Please, Souji-kun, there's no need to get technical," Adachi said. "Terms, conditions, exclusions, limitations; it's not like we're writing a contract here. Just a simple agreement between friends. Partners, if you will." Souji's fingers tangled in the fabric of his shirt; Adachi was just trying to bait him, and he couldn't keep rising to it. "I'm a reasonable guy, you know. Easy to get along with, easy to work with. I just happen to have come into possession of something of yours, and I'm willing to part with it for a reasonable price. Actually, 'price' might be too crude. Exchange rate, perhaps? It's certainly an exchange."

" _Tell me,_ " Souji cut in, his voice high-pitched and desperate.

"I will release Yosuke," Adachi said, the playfulness gone from his tone, "and I will never contact either of you again. All I require in exchange..." He trailed off, pausing for dramatic effect. Souji gritted his teeth. "Is the cooperation of Naoto Shirogane."


	30. like moths

There was a moment, however brief, where Souji thought he would say yes.

He thought about Yosuke, probably alone and almost certainly scared, and the traitor word was on the tip of his tongue, eager to be spoken, prepared to submit. But then he looked up and saw Naoto standing in front of him, confusion plain on her face; she couldn't hear Adachi's side of the conversation, was unaware that she was being suggested as a bargaining chip, as though she wasn't even a person.

He thought about Dojima, Nanako, all the other friends he'd lost both from Inaba and from before, and the acquiescence fizzled from his lips.

"Forget it," was what he said instead, surprising both himself and Naoto with the ferocity of it. "No deal."

"You'll be sorry," Adachi snapped, and the line went dead.

All the adrenaline left Souji in a rush, and he sunk to his knees, his phone clattering on the floor. Naoto rushed forward as though to catch him, but stopped short, lowering herself to the floor a few centimeters away. Souji was acutely aware of her eyes on him, but it was a long moment before she spoke. "Senpai."

He looked up then; her face was completely neutral, not the fear or pity or anger he'd expected. Somehow that was worse, and he looked away quickly, eyes settling on the television in the interrogation room. "We have to go in," he said quietly, his voice sounding far away to his own ears. It was a decision he hadn't realized he'd made until he said it aloud. "We have to find Yosuke, and get him out. We have to do it now, before it's too late."

Naoto opened her mouth, then closed it again. "All right. Let's go, senpai."


	31. caged in

They went in through the Junes television, like always; they didn't know where the television inside the interrogation room might spit them out, and the situation was too urgent for experimentation. It had been a year since Souji had been properly inside the TV world, and longer since he'd been inside without a navigator. Even so, he didn't need a navigator to guess where Yosuke likely would have ended up. He locked eyes with Naoto, and they nodded in unison before setting off into the fog towards the twisted shopping district.

It was just as Souji remembered it, black and red and fog-coated, and it only took him a moment to spot a crumpled form leaning against the wall of the Konishi Liquor Store. "Yosuke!" Souji shouted, breaking into a run, Naoto on his heels.

Souji slid to a stop a meter from where Yosuke sat, and horror seeped into his bones now that he could see in detail. Yosuke looked utterly battered, clothes ripped, dirt smudged across his face, blood oozing from a cut on his forehead. Even through his obvious exhaustion, his eyes brightened a little when he saw Souji. "You... really came," he managed, voice worn thin. "I didn't think..."

"Don't be stupid," Souji said; he didn't miss how Yosuke winced a little at the admonishment. "Of course I'd come for you. You couldn't possibly think--"

"I don't know what to think any more!" Yosuke countered. "I don't understand this, and I don't understand you! After everything you did, how can you expect me to believe--" He cut himself off, eyes wide, one finger raised to point behind Souji. "Look out!"

Souji had no time to move, but Naoto tackled him to the ground, out of the path of the Minotaur's huge fist.


	32. never a chance

There was a shatter and a flash of light, and Yamato Takeru shimmered into being above them, its sword swinging in a wide defensive arc. The Minotaur barely even flinched, roaring again and beginning to charge, but the distraction was enough for Souji to reach for Atropos and cast a wind spell. There was a moment where he feared he'd made the wrong choice, that the spell would be reflected back at them, but the Minotaur shrieked and staggered, falling heavily to the asphalt.

Naoto followed it up with a megidolaon, crushing the shadow into vapor, while Souji summoned Horus and let its healing light wash over Yosuke. He still looked exhausted, but the wound on his head had stopped bleeding and he was able to stagger to his feet. "They're _everywhere,_ " Yosuke said, keeping his voice low. "The Shadows, I mean. Ever since Adachi disappeared..."

"Where is he?" Souji asked, voice trembling with exertion and anger.

"I don't know," Yosuke said. He wrapped his arms around himself, his whole body shaking. Souji started to reach out a steadying hand, but he let it drop when Yosuke flinched away. "I don't think he was ever really here. He just... vanished."

"Senpai!" Naoto's voice was panicked, and Souji spun to see a mass of Shadows pouring down from the rooftop across the street, packed so thickly that the individual forms were barely discernible. In the center of them was a huge Shadow shaped like a multicolored eye, and next to it was Adachi, grinning wildly.

"Man, my ears were burning!" Adachi said. He was holding something in his hand, and pointed it at the Shadow. "Looks like it's time for the main event!" The Shadow flickered out like a TV turning off, then reappeared on the street in front of them.


	33. oblivion

The fight was decided before it even began.

Yosuke watched the whole thing unfold through a half-conscious haze, seeing it as though it were a series of still images. Naoto lashing out with Yamato Takeru. Souji summoning Persona after Persona, most of which Yosuke couldn't name. The huge Shadow thrumming with energy, never seeming to weaken. Adachi looming above it all like a puppetmaster.

An attack hitting Souji. Then a second hit. Then, just before the third, Naoto leaping in to intercept. The huge gash in her chest, raw and bloody. Souji crouching over her body, summoning his white-winged Persona.

Through the din in his own ears, Yosuke couldn't hear Souji scream.

And then it was over.

\--

After the day they'd had, hours of frustrating roundabout discussion with no clear conclusion, Yosuke hadn't particularly wanted to go home and try to act normal around his parents. The atmosphere between the members of the Investigation Team before they'd decided to give up had felt so... final. It felt like an ending, even without a final verdict. Souji had looked positively haunted throughout the whole thing, and it made Yosuke worried; besides, what kind of person would he be if he let his best friend go home to an empty house after all that?

The two of them went up to Souji's room, neither speaking, but the silence didn't feel companionable like it had before. Yosuke couldn't put a finger on it, but the day had changed something irreversibly. The room was dark and yellow-tinged from the fog, and Souji sat down on his couch without turning a light on. Yosuke paused for a moment before sitting in the desk chair.

"What would you think," Souji said, voice strangely disembodied in the darkness, "if the killer was someone you knew?"


	34. underscore

Yosuke had no idea how to respond. His gut instinct was to laugh, to brush the whole thing off as a joke, but Souji had sounded so deathly serious that he forced that impulse away. In truth, he'd never even considered the possibility that he knew the culprit; in retrospect, he realized that, in a small town like Inaba, it was more likely than not. Still, he didn't want to believe that anyone he knew was capable of murdering another person. Yosuke wasn't the best judge of character, certainly, but he liked to believe he was better than _that._

"I..." _couldn't believe that,_ Yosuke started to say, but the words died on his lips. Why was Souji asking him this in the first place? Something about this, Souji's demeanor, the tone of his voice, the entire preceding day, made Yosuke fear that this wasn't a rhetorical question. "What is this about, partner?"

"What if I was the killer?" Souji said.

_Now_ Yosuke laughed, shakily and with no humor. "That's not funny. Don't even joke about it."

"It's not a joke." Yosuke stared at Souji, but he couldn't decipher what kind of expression he had on his face. His voice was devoid of emotion, clinical. "What would you do? Would you turn me in? Would you turn in your best friend to the police as a murderer?"

"Partner," Yosuke whispered, "you can't expect me to answer that."

Souji exhaled, his hands coming up to slowly scrub over his face. Yosuke watched the gentle rise and fall of his shoulders as he breathed, watched as a single shudder went through his body before subsiding. "I'm sorry," Souji said finally, voice quiet and muffled by his palms. "I just don't know what to believe anymore."


	35. dashed to pieces

Souji Seta learned about death by degrees.

He attended his aunt's funeral when he was 13; he'd only met his uncle once before, when Souji was very small, and he couldn't remember meeting his aunt at all, though his mother insisted he had. Surrounded by sad adults, Souji spent most of the time by himself, nose buried in a book. The actual phenomenon of his aunt's death didn't really sink in until he moved to Inaba 3 years later and met his cousin properly for the first time.

In Inaba, death became unavoidable. Mayumi Yamano only affected him insomuch as it kept his uncle away from home, but Saki Konishi was almost immediately after, and _that_ was far closer to death than he was prepared to be. It wasn't as though they were close, not in the way that she seemed to be with Yosuke, but he'd only just met her. He'd talked to her. That wasn't the type of person he expected to die.

Mr. Morooka wasn't one he liked to think about; those were complicated feelings, because he'd never liked King Moron, but that didn't mean he wanted him to be dead. That wasn't the type of person Souji was and, to be honest, he was horrified to discover that there were some people who _were_ like that.

The worst one was Nanako, because even though she had woken up miraculously, there was a brief period of utter despair the likes of which he hoped to never experience again.

And then he _did_ experience it again, when _he_ became a murderer.

All those events built on each other until they finally led to this moment: Naoto Shirogane lying dead in Souji's arms, and none of his Personas were able to bring her back.


	36. loyalty

The Shadow crackled like static and blinked out of existence. Adachi's voice cut through the din in Souji's ears. "I told you you'd be sorry, Souji-kun! You just didn't listen!"

Souji gripped Naoto's body close to his chest as he turned to look at Yosuke, who had barely moved throughout the short-lived battle with the Shadow. Yosuke's eyes were open again, wide and staring at the bloody mess that remained of their friend. Blinking back tears, Souji turned to look back at Adachi, still standing on the rooftop above them. "What do you want?"

"What was that?" Adachi said, bending over and holding a hand to his ear. "I didn't quite catch it!"

"What the hell do you want from us?" The broken scream didn't come from Souji, but from Yosuke. "How much do you need to destroy before you'll be satisfied?"

"Yosuke-kun, I don't think anyone was talking to you!" Adachi snapped. His eyes looked a little wild, and maybe a little yellow, but Souji couldn't be sure if that was a trick of the light.

"Like hell you weren't!" Yosuke was struggling to sit up; even if Souji didn't have Naoto's body in his arms, he doubted Yosuke would have accepted his assistance. "You tricked me, you bastard! You tricked both of us! And I want some goddamn answers!"

"This is what you wanted!" It was Adachi's voice, but also another, a shrieking echo behind his words. "This is what humanity wanted! This is for the good of mankind!" Adachi's skin looked strangely rainbow-patterned; Souji blinked twice and it was gone, but he couldn't get the image of it out of his head, strangely reminiscent of the Shadow they'd fought, the Shadow that had killed...

"Fuck you," Yosuke spat. "You have no idea what I want."


	37. hedged in

The realization that Souji was coming to, even as Yosuke countered Adachi with as much bravado as he could muster, was that they were trapped. This, he realized, was likely Adachi's plan all along: to lure the three of them, the ones who knew his secret or the biggest threats, into the television world with no way out. He'd known how ruthless Adachi was, but somehow he'd imagined himself to be valued highly enough to be immune to his machinations. The regret pooled in his stomach like an oil spill.

There were so many questions he wanted to ask, and he couldn't decide which ones he even wanted answers for. Before Adachi could rise further to Yosuke's bait, Souji cut in. "So that's it, then," he said, his voice quavering with emotion. "You're going to leave us here to die." _After all the things I did for you,_ he thought, but didn't say. _All the things I gave up for you._

Adachi pivoted to look at Souji, as though he'd forgotten he was there. "Well, that would be boring, wouldn't it, Souji-kun? I'd have to go back to doing everything myself, and there was so much less fun in that." He made a show of thoughtfully tapping his index finger against the side of his head, then snapped his fingers. "I've got it! I've decided I'll let you go back."

"Don't fuck with us," Yosuke growled. "After all this, you're just going to let us go?"

"Oh, now _that's_ not what I said," Adachi said, the crescent of his smile growing wider. He held up the object he'd been holding in his hand. "You see, I have this remote, and it'll let you go back to the outside world. But here's the catch: only one of you can use it."


	38. how to survive

Maybe in another lifetime, there would have been an inner struggle. Souji might have wrestled with the decision, might have agonized over the merits of taking the remote himself and going back to reality, to be with Nanako and apologize to his friends and devise a gambit to go back in and get Yosuke out alive.

He thought about how, even after everything, Yosuke had tried to help him by blocking Adachi's number, and he hated that the effort was ultimately wasted.

Souji bit his lip as he gently lowered Naoto's body to the asphalt. He closed his eyes and pushed the grief aside. Then he stood and turned to Yosuke.

"You need to take it," he said.

Yosuke's mouth had been halfway open, halfway to saying something with which Souji would have almost certainly disagreed. His suspicion was all but confirmed by the way Yosuke's mouth snapped shut and his brow creased. "Don't be stupid."

"You need to take it," Souji repeated, pleading. "You're injured, and you need to tell the others about what happened to..." He trailed off, not able to say her name. "What happened here. And you need to take care of Nanako for me."

"No way," Yosuke said. The set of his jaw and the expression on his face reminded Souji of how he'd looked in the parking lot of the hospital, determined and stubborn and furious and heartbreakingly sad. "I won't do it."

"I can't..." Souji forced out, his voice cracking on it. _Can't leave you here. Can't let you die._ "Please, Yosuke... this solves everything, right? Why won't you just go?"

"Because I'm not you!" Yosuke yelled, with enough volume and force that Souji recoiled. There were tears in Yosuke's eyes, Souji noticed, and he looked away, pretended he didn't see.


	39. consequence

Souji dropped to one knee in front of Yosuke; for a moment, it was as though the fog had closed in and partitioned everything else away. The red and black tones of the other world's shopping district, Adachi's rapt stare, the Shadows that were surely lurking in the alleyways, all of it had ceased to matter. For all that it mattered to Souji, he and Yosuke were the only people left, in this world and any other.

"Why are you so upset?" Souji asked, his chest tight with the thick air and his thicker emotions. "I... I thought you hated me."

Yosuke's eyes widened, obviously shocked. His mouth twitched, as though he didn't know what to say or how to say it or if he should say anything at all. "I hated _him,_ " he said finally, with vitriol. "I hated what he did to you." Yosuke closed his eyes, turned his face away; Souji held his breath, afraid to move or speak. "I hated that I wasn't your friend anymore."

"What a precious heart to heart!" Adachi's voice sounded close, too close, and Souji quickly turned his head expecting Adachi to be standing right next to him, only to see he was still atop the roof. "But I'm not gonna wait all night, Souji-kun. This offer has an expiration date. Decide, fast, before I change my mind."

He turned back to Yosuke, the edges of his vision blurring with tears he couldn't afford to shed. Not yet. He reached out on impulse, gripping Yosuke by the shoulders, but gently, gently. "You are my friend," Souji whispered. He tried to ignore the pallor of Yosuke's skin, the bloody stain on his shirt, the pained look in his eyes. "And that's why I need you to go."


	40. unwillingly

The exhaustion had settled over Yosuke like a palpable thing, a thick coat, a second skin. Even so, he couldn't let this go. He was leaving the television world with Souji or not at all. "I won't," he said, well aware of how petulant he sounded. "You can't make me."

"Do you want to die here too?!" Souji shouted, and Yosuke flinched, shrugging Souji's hands away. When Souji spoke again, his voice had dropped to a quiet hiss. "How does it help anyone, how does it help _me_ , if you bleed out here inside the TV?"

As if on cue, Yosuke coughed, once, twice; when he brought his hand away from his mouth, there was blood on his palm. He closed his hand into a fist, hiding it away.

"Don't make me do this," Souji whispered.

Yosuke didn't answer.

Souji sighed and turned to Adachi. "Give it to me," he said, holding out his hand. Adachi tossed the remote down and Souji caught it easily, then turned it over in his hand. To Yosuke, it just looked like an ordinary television remote, but when Souji pressed a button, a stack of three televisions appeared, just like like Teddie's always had. Souji touched one of the screens and his hand disappeared inside.

Yosuke hadn't thought he'd feel so relieved, looking his own death in the face like this.

Then, all at once, there was a rush of air. Souji had his free hand outstretched, a blue card hovering in his palm. "I'm sorry," he said to Yosuke as he crushed the card in his hand.

Izanagi shimmered into being, and suddenly everything _hurt;_ Yosuke's body felt fuzzy, overloaded...

_Electrified._

When he came to, he was lying on the floor of his own bedroom. And he was alone.


	41. on & on & on

When Yosuke woke next, he was in a hospital bed, Yukiko and Chie at his side.

According to the girls, Yosuke's parents had found him in his room, unconscious, clothes bloody but with no visible wounds. That's how it was, with the TV world; cuts and bruises and broken bones had never persisted into the real world. The only thing that persisted was...

It was Chie who said it, while Yukiko looked at the floor. Naoto had been found, strung up on a wire. "'S why Kanji isn't here," she mumbled, thin-lipped. "He's taking it hard."

"And what about...?" Yosuke asked, already knowing the answer.

"He hasn't come out," Yukiko said. "And we can't get in."

\--

Two days later, Yosuke was discharged. On his way out, he overheard from a nurse that Nanako Dojima was being transported to a hospital in the city.

_You need to take care of Nanako for me,_ Souji had said. Yosuke knew Nanako would be better off in the city, close to Souji's parents and away from the fog, but he couldn't shake the feeling that this was yet another failure.

Someone had tidied Yosuke's room, he noticed when he arrived home. His phone was on the charger, screen lit up with two new messages, and he sunk into his chair as he flipped open the phone to check.

For a moment, his heart stopped.

**Seta Souji 16:37**  
I can't believe you did that.

**Seta Souji 16:40**  
Thank you.

It was wrong. These texts were from days ago, before Souji came into the TV. But Yosuke couldn't help but feel...

The phone rang. Unknown number. Hand shaking, Yosuke brought the phone to his ear. "Hello?"

"If you get calls from this number," Adachi said, sharp-edged and chilling, "you'd better pick up."

_end._


End file.
